wasn't too lazy to work. They'd git money to buy powder an'
fuse an' caps, ma'am, an' blow it on booze, y'see. An' they'd hang in
town, boardin' off Frenchy, jest as long as they c'ld think of an excuse
fer stayin'.

"So somebody tipped Frenchy off that he was bein' worked for grub an'
booze money, an' Frenchy done a lot uh thinkin'. Next time them two come
in, he was mighty nice to 'em. An' when he finally got 'em pried loose
an' headed out, he appeared suddenly and says he's goin along to take a
look at his mine. They couldn't do nothin' but take him, uh course. So
they led him out to an old location hole somebody else had dug, an' they
showed him iron cappin' an' granite contact an' so on--just talkin' wild,
an' every few minutes comin' in with the 'strong indications of a rich ore
body.' That was their trump suit, y'see, ma'am.

"Frenchy listened, an' his eyes commenced to snap, but he never said
nothin' for awhile. Then all at once he pulled one uh these ol'-style
revolvers an' points it at 'em, an' yells: _'Indicaziones! Indicaziones!_
T'ell weez your _indicaziones!_ Now you show me zee me-_tall_!'" Casey
stopped, reached for his plug and remembered that he mustn't. The Little
Woman laughed. She didn't seem to need the tapering off of the story, as
most women demand.

"And so you think I have plenty of _indicaziones_, but mighty little
chance of getting the me-_tall_," she pointed the moral. "Well, then tell
me what to do."

It was in the telling, I think, that Casey for the first time forgot to be
shy and became his real, Casey Ryan best. The Little Woman saw at once,
when he pointed it out to her, that she ought to drift and cut under the
iron capping instead of tunnelling away from it as they had been doing.

But she was not altogether engrossed in that tunnel. I think her
prospecting into the soul of Casey Ryan interested her much more; and
being a woman she followed the small outcropping of his Irish humor and
opened up a distinct vein of it before the evening was over. Just to
convince you, she led him on until Casey told her all about feeding his
Ford syrup instead of oil, and all about how it ran over him a few times
on the dry lake,--Casey was secretly made happy because she saw at once
how easily that could happen, and never once doubted that he was sober!
He told her about the goats in Patmos and made her laugh so hard that Babe
woke and whimpered a little, and insisted that Casey take her